Les Anges dans nos Campagnes
by AnotherSilentObserver
Summary: Paris, 1906. From the comfort of his drawing room, with windows and doors like everyone else, Erik reminisces about Christmases past. Leroux-based. Entry for Not A Ghost3's Phantom Christmas one-shot Challenge.


**Les Anges dans nos Campagnes**

**Author's note** : This is my first published phic ever, so reviews would be much appreciated. Post-canon in Leroux!verse, hence triggers for mental illness. The title is from the very popular French Christmas carol known in English as "Angels we have heard on high".

The days were getting ever shorter. Even with the bright electric light and his special magnifying glasses, Erik was not able to make out the words on the page.

Conceding defeat, he closed his book and rubbed his tired eyes.

The room would be warmer if he pulled the curtains closed, but his old hip injury was bothering him, and he was loath to get up. As it was, the afternoon sky was a scene of riot - fiery oranges and reds promptly swallowed by a great mass of indigo, turning into inky velvet.

This could only mean one thing: in a distant field, majestic conifers were being slaughtered, to be cartered off to all corners of the land, where they would suffer the ultimate indignity: being covered in tinsel and baubles. Surely an end second only to going straight for firewood for its sheer mindlessness.

The servants' boy, now a strapping lad of nineteen, had gone to the market with Christine and would bring her chosen victim home. She would then spend a day or so festooning the poor unsuspecting spruce - and the rest of the house - with decorations retrieved from the attic.

Looking at the darkening sky, he smiled.

His first Christmas - that is, the first one he had somehow been party to - had taken place in Christine's small flat on the rue Notre-Dame des Victoires over two decades previously. She had reclaimed him on behalf of the human race, she had wrestled his soul from the abyss. She had insisted that he should stay with her. And then, miracle of miracles, the angel had agreed to marry him._ Him_! Of her own free will! She did not love him. It did not matter.

During the many months of his recovery, such employment as he was able to find had not been particularly profitable. Their combined income had kept them warm, properly fed and clothed - certainly better than she could have done on her own - but they hardly lived in luxury. Given their somewhat straightened circumstances, the tree had been mercifully small. The decorations box had made its first appearance. It held a peculiar set of ribbons, wooden figurines and salt paste shapes painted in red and white. He could tell that the colours were vibrant, once. Now, the assemblage looked somewhat shabby, but Christine still handled the items as if they were fragments of the True Cross. She had baked thin biscuits, fragrant with cinnamon and cardamom; he had learnt to pronounce _pepparkakor_.

In anticipation of the last few weeks of her mourning, he had bought her a shawl of fine dove-coloured cashmere with matching lace trimmings. She had cooed admiringly and rubbed her face on the soft fabric, just as he envisioned that she would. She had then handed him a carefully wrapped package, no bigger than a spice cruet. He had opened it carefully, "as if it was a fragment of the True Cross", she had teased. He had not had the heart to snuff out her merriment by telling her it had been his first ever Christmas present. An elegant pair of ebony cufflinks, no less. He had not envisioned that.

His second Christmas should have been a happy one. They had moved to a larger dwelling, a little further away from the Opera House. It was so long ago, yet Erik could still picture it very clearly. They occupied the two upper floors of a modest townhouse. The rooms were small, a little dark, but Christine had infused the place with cosiness. Maybe it was the cushions and soft draperies which she had delighted in buying or making; maybe it was her mere presence. The ground floor was designed to house a small shop. Instead, the large room was filled with large-scale drawings and models on several tables which would never have fitted in the Valeriuses' small flat, the whole thing hidden from the gaze of passers-by by a full-length voile curtain extending across the window. The neighbours did not seem to mind their music-making, or if they did, they had the good sense not to complain. The way she loved him now startled and enraptured him in equal measure.

It should have been a peaceful Christmas. They both needed a rest. Christine had been unwell from the time the autumn alchemist had started his work on the trees outside to the graceful fall of his leafy bounty. Erik had been working all hours on a variety of engineering projects. He was about to tell her, to tell her about _the house_, their house, the plot he had finally managed to purchase, when she told him _her_ news, her terrifying, inconceivable, disastrous news.

He could not remember much of the rest of that day, or those that followed. It was cold outside, and dry, but the biting cold did not stop him from furiously pacing the streets of Paris, seeking - seeking what? - trying to prevent his over-active mind from imagining the worst, thinking of paying one final visit to the neighbouring Seine but not finding the courage, drifting some more, not able to feel his fingers or toes, turning back just once to send some miscreants who thought a lonely wanderer under the dark December sky would make easy prey on their way, screaming in terror (and pain), pausing to draw breath after that encounter, and somehow finding himself - an uncountable number of hours later - on the doorstep of a small apartment in the rue de Rivoli.

He remembered being given something cold but burning to drink, then something hot and aromatic; he remembered being unable to say more than a few words, words of his poisonous fate and despair. He barely had the strength to move. Though he was plagued by nightmares when he slept, the periods of consciousness were worse, struggling against the hydra of guilt, doubt, and horror. In a blur of panic, he had accused her of being unfaithful. She had gone very silent, her eyes sad rather than frightened. She had not bowed her head while he ranted and raged, each allegation in retrospect more undeserved than the last. She would never forgive him, surely. She would never invite him into the warm haven of her bed again. Instead, the fruit of her womb, if she loved it at all, would be the sole recipient of her love and affection.

Yet she had made her way to the rue de Rivoli. She had entered the Daroga's living room pale and red-eyed. He should have apologised, wanted to even, but no words came out of his mouth. He wanted to flee back to the cavern below the Opera, and die there, quickly, but his legs refused to carry him. She sat down and waited, as she had done when he was ill, and too terrified at his own madness to dare speak at all. It all felt dreadfully familiar.

Eventually, she repeated what she had told him when she had first imparted her news: that she would love the child whatever it looked like, because it would be their child. That she understood Erik was scared, but that she would never let anyone treat a child of hers like an outcast because of its looks. The sheer naivety of the woman made something in him snap. Before he could control himself, he had offered to kill the child quickly and painlessly if it was disfigured (while silently thinking this might be a good course of action even if it wasn't). She screamed, then. Like a banshee. She had never screamed like this before - not when she had first bared his hideous face, not while the Vicomte was being roasted then drowned, not later. She screamed at full volume, with no regard to the damage it might inflict on her vocal chords, or for Daroga's reputation with his neighbours. She yelled with hurt, with _fury_. "I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER, ERIK!"

"I am not your mother."

Strange how a few words can change everything. It was a kiss last time. This time, it was five words, innocuous on their own, powerful in their combination.

I am not your mother.

The apology dislodged from his throat, as sharp and precious as a fragment of the True Cross. They cried in silence all the way home, and for a long time afterwards. He could not love that child, but it did not matter. Christine would stay; she had promised, she was his wife. She would love the child for the two of them.

The last few days of December went by slowly. They were careful around each other. He spent more time than usual in his work rooms, mulling over how he would tell her about the house. He rehearsed several little speeches, but none of them hit the right note. Then, on the last day of the year, he hit upon an idea. He grabbed his winter cloak and fedora, and hurried to the shops. Later that evening, when the dinner dishes were done, he bade her come to the drawing room with him. On a side table, he had laid out several sheets of architectural drawing paper. There was also a small cardboard box on the piano.

She guessed quickly, his little songbird. She marvelled at the detail, looked carefully at the room layout... and stopped. Her dainty index finger hovered over the label he had hoped would catch her attention. He thought he saw a smile on her lips - a small one, mind, as if she was... Afraid. His wife was afraid he did not mean it, that he had only added a nursery to his plan to placate her. He was about to explain his purpose when she -quite suddenly- folded herself into his arms and started weeping. There were only words of love and repentance then, until he led her to the box and slowly and carefully knelt at her feet. In the package, she found a carefully wrapped angel made of the finest white porcelain.

_One more fragment of the True Cross for her collection_. Somehow he must have muttered it aloud: she smiled, and kissed his forehead.


End file.
